Hillary voters won't back Barack? I can live with that... We'll be fine...

According to the one and only Jake Tapper (Officially Certified Idiot) at ABC, Democrats are taking this Clinton vs. Obama thing seriously.

Apparently, tons of Clinton voters will bail on the Democratic party if Obama wins, handing McCain a decided advantage in a general election.

It's the same on the flip-side. If Hillary wins, Obama backers won't help her out. Good news for McCain. Not really, because a Clinton win would require the intervention of Mr. Rourke and Tattoo, but more on that later.

Let's assume that Jake Tapper got lucky enough to actually report the poll findings correctly for a moment. Considering his history of dumb-shittery, there is a strong likelihood he didn't, but we're going give him the benefit of the doubt this time. Plus, let's pretend like the data is accurate. We're just playing with ideas here, after all.

If it's true that Hillary people won't back Barack and that Obama people won't turn out for Hillary... If it's true that this race has fractured the party... If it's true... Well...

I'm okay with that.

Look, Hillary isn't going to win the nomination. That will not happen. Period. The 10% chance thing is a pipe dream. The odds of her winning are zero. A Coppin State NCAA tournament championship was more likely than a Clinton nomination (Sorry about the play-in loss, Fang.).

I don't have to worry about choosing between Hillary and McCain. Hillary isn't going to win.

So, we have the now-inevitable match-up between John McCain and Barack Obama. What in the world will happen if the Taylor Marsh crowd and assorted other fans of The Monster decide to pout and stay home? What will happen if they backlash and throw their support behind John McCain?

I guess McCain will win. And I can live with that.

About a year ago, I saw some guy driving around with a bumper sticker on his car proclaiming "Anyone but Hillary". I thought that was a pretty silly sentiment. After getting a refresher course in Clintonian politics and reacquainted with The Monster, I have to give that dude kudos for getting it right. Hillary Clinton causes soul cancer and is bad. Period.

Compared to Hillary, John McCain is super awesome! I would totally tape his poster to my wall and write "John Brown McCain" all over my Trapper Keeper a billion times before I considered voting for The Monster.

Obviously, Obama is my first choice. But I'm going to level with you... I don't agree with everything he says and believes. I think he's silly about some things. I think he's wrong about some stuff. It just so happens that John McCain is a better match for me on some of those things, too.

Shhhh... I know, I'm supporting Barack. I'm supposed to be a true believin' cult member with a belief that Barry is a messiah. Don't spread it around that I'm a reasonable Barack backer. It will kill my rally cred.

I believe we need a change in our national vision. I believe we need someone in the White House who is genuinely dedicated to approaching our divisive politics and knee-jerk animosities seriously. I think we need someone who really does believe in America's potential and recognizes the way our current arrangements compromise that power. That's why I'm voting for Barack. I'm voting on meta-issues.

When it boils down to procedure, mechanism and policy alterations Barack and Hillary occupy similar turf. I like some of what both believe on this technocratic level, I disagree with some of it, too.

I feel the same way about John McCain on that level. I don't think he has the "vision thing" and I don't think he gets The Big Problem like Barack, but I'm damn near as comfortable with the idea of McCain's positions as I am with Barack's. Near, but not there.

So, if I can't get someone to help with a paradigm shift, I'm okay with getting the old-timer who's probably smart enough to avoid engulfing me in a nuclear fireball for four years. He'll just be the last 8-track tape we toss into the deck before moving on to better technology next time.

McCain may be a traditional pol. He brings more ho-hum than hope. I don't think he's evil, though.

I don't think his soul is a gnarled, dried up pod holding only a maniacal drive for power. I don't believe his brain has been reduced to an election calculation device that fragments populations, looks for cheap shot opportunities and disregards honesty in pursuit of victory. That describes The Monster.

I wouldn't be okay with rewarding the sick and degenerate politics of Hillary Clinton, though. She is the poster monster for the meta-problem. She is the fucking meta-problem.

Thank goodness I won't have to make that decision. Obama vs. McCain is forthcoming. I'm voting Barack. If the Hillary people stay home in November that's their fucking problem.

To borrow a sentiment from Hillary (who borrowed it from John Edwards who may have borrowed it from Bill in the first place):

Whatever happens, we'll be fine.





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New Hampshire's inaccurate polls spur election fraud allegations.... Hillary couldn't REALLY beat Obama, could she?

Hillary beat Obama even though the polls predicted otherwise. Fraud? No. Poll inaccuracy? Yes. Why? Here's the John Brown Explanation:

Obama was kicking ass in the polls. Hillary was a tearful mess. Facing the inevitable Obama Victory with a capital "V", she was flailing in desperation. She was gonna call in Carville. She was firing everyone. Bill was steaming. Insiders said she was trying to decide when to surrender the whole damn race, leaving Mr. Obama only the formality of beating down John "Mad Dog of the People" Edwards on his way to two consecutive terms of Camelot II.

That's when they decided to actually have the people in New Hampshire vote. Early results showed Clinton with a slight edge over Obama. The TV people didn't even really seem to notice. They kept wondering aloud how big the eventual Obama margin of victory would be. Eventually, they noted that it was closer than anticipated, but they still seemed pretty convinced that the O-Man would prevail.

He didn't. The polls were wrong.

Hillary won.

At least that's what I thought until I started to read all the people who claimed polls couldn't be THAT wrong. Obviously, something wasn't kosher in New Hampshire (which really isn't surprising considering their love of shellfish-based recipes).

Election fraud in New Hampshire, they say. The evidence? Well, there's one interesting story about percentages and the use of the Diebold Devil Machine. There's also a family of Ron Paul-backers who claim that nefarious forces didn't tally their votes. Someone just can't believe people won't vote for Dennis Kucinich and his hot wife. Otherwise, the reason why people seem to think there was fraud boils down to one thing... The polls were so fucking wrong.

If you don't happen to be one of the more conspiratorial among us and have your doubts about election fraud, join the club. Sitting fears of electioneering aside, however, it is rather interesting to look at why those polls might have been off by so much.

Hillary beat Obama even though the polls predicted otherwise. Fraud? No. Poll inaccuracy? Yes. Why? Here's the John Brown Explanation:

The undecided factor. Something like one in five of all potential dem. primary voters self-described as "undecided" even in very recent polls. They just so happened to decide to side with HRC when it came time to pull the levers.

The name placement factor. This might sound ass-crazy, but I read an interesting observation about the placement of names on the New Hampshire ballot. Apparently, Hillary got lucky. Her name appeared in the top slot. Some say that placement might be worth 3%. Enough to turn the Obama loss into a win, you know.

The limitations of polling. Mystery Pollster has an interesting run-down of the reasons exit polls suffer from inaccuracy. Some of those factors apply to more predictive polling, too. Gary Langer puts into New Hampshire-specific terms:

"In the end there may be no smoking gun. Those polls may have been accurate, but done in by a superior get-out-the-vote effort, or by very late deciders whose motivations may or may not ever be known. They may have been inaccurate because of bad modeling, compromised sampling, or simply an overabundance of enthusiasm for Obama on the heels of his Iowa victory that led his would-be supporters to overstate their propensity to turn out. (A function, perhaps, of youth.)"

Every race is unique and poses its own particular challenges to the measurers of opinion. Janet Elder makes that argument with respect to New Hampshire:

"What is more likely is that New Hampshire voters’ opinions were very much in flux, with voters buffeted by the intense media coverage until the moment they finally stepped into the voting booth and registered what pollsters call “considered opinion,” the kind of opinion born of reflection rather than one elicited in an instant by a poll taker."

The empirical inaccuracy of polling. Check out this little study. It evaluated poll data and compared it to real results for a couple of California elections. You'll notice that polls often under- or overestimate candidate popularity outside of the usually anticipated margin of error. Mystery Pollster has another cool post that shows how past polls in national elections have been FUBAR. Political Arithmetik has a groovy graph that shows how polls tend to be pretty damn accurate in close races (assuming two candidates, but still...), but also notes that "More practically, it means that polls rarely miss the winner with a 10 point lead, but they DO miss it 10% of the time."

Here is a lesson in reason and good political sportsmanship, Obama-backers... Don't blame Hillary's evil minions for rigging the New Hampshire primary. She didn't. She just picked up more votes. If you felt let down after some poll-inspired overconfidence and need to be pissed with someone, look in the mirror.



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